Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

afterbabel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 480 posts

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#171

Post by bigger_cheese »

bilbo0s wrote: post #76
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my prewar non-car-centric city, kids still walk to school. They don't play outside like previous generations. You'll see the Christmas bikes for a few weeks when it's warm enough in late spring then nothing all summer long.

As a parent, I can tell you video games and smart phones have a lot to do with this.

I think there is some generalizing here I grew up in an Australian City in the 90's.

Even back then kids weren't clamoring to play outside in the street. Or ride bikes etc (there was a clique at school who were skateboarders but not a widespread thing). I think it very much depends on the kids temperament, my experience as a kid didn't involve a lot of outdoors activities.

However my parents were pretty big on making sure I had exercise I played sport on the weekend (cricket in the summer and soccer in the winter) and it was non-negotiable my parents insisted on it. If not for sport I don't think I'd have spent any time outdoors at all.

I think Weekend Sport might be an Australian cultural thing does the US have weekend kids sports?

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#172

Post by Moldoteck »

ars wrote: post #91
bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

> kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school That's how it's like in the suburbs. There are very few cars, and kids can play and bike on the roads, and go anywhere on their bikes. It's only urban areas that are very car centric and kids can't do that, although they can go on the subway or a bus. The suburbs are much nicer and safer for kids.

You sure you describe american suburbs? Maybe it's aomewhat true for european ones, but american suburbs are mostly designed to isolate ppl

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#173

Post by vundercind »

thepasswordis wrote: post #159
dalyons wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for you, and that sucks. but it is not so for the vast majority of the US who’s parks are just fine

In what city in the US is this not true?

It’s true in some parts of lots of US cities.

It’s not true in most parts of most US cities.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#174

Post by squigz »

thepasswordis wrote: post #159
dalyons wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for you, and that sucks. but it is not so for the vast majority of the US who’s parks are just fine

In what city in the US is this not true?

Are you suggesting that every single park in every single city in the US is inundated with drug addicts?

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#175

Post by randomdata »

a1o wrote: post #17
doe_eyes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rate of work-related moves is half of what it used to be in the 1960s. By all accounts, mobility is decreasing, not increasing. The reality is that we just don't talk to each other much. If you want to look for the decline of one institution that provided some degree of community cohesion, then the answer is going to be pretty unpopular: we don't go to church anymore.

It doesn't have to be churches, local school with parents association making events, libraries that have spaces for the kids to hangout with others and work on projects together, open sports areas, parks and small festivities, farmers market that have a set periodicity. But it has to have one space where people can start to meet each other so they can talk and desire more things so they can build these other spaces o…

> It doesn't have to be churches

Strictly true, but if people aren't strongly compelled to show up somewhere, they aren't apt to. Historically, the "fear of God" ensured that people went to church, effectively forcing them to gather, meet each other, so on and so forth.

The only thing I see that comes close to that these days is youth sports leagues, where parents have a fear of failing their children if not heavily involved in such activities. While this does seem to establish some kind of community amongst parents of children of similar ages, it does not seem to expand out into parents with children of dissimilar ages even within the same sport, let alone an even larger community. Which is not terribly surprising as there is not much reason for someone unrelated to a participating child to show up.

I might even go as far as to say that because parents get stuck in those narrowly isolated communities, it contributes a fracturing to any larger community that might have otherwise been able to form. It is difficult to have a general community of only 20-somethings and the elderly with little in-between.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#176

Post by Moldoteck »

tmaly wrote: post #2

I would have thought that two parents working and not technology would have been the major contributor to loss of the community in early periods.

Two parents working doesn't matter when the environment is safe. When I was a kid both of my parents did work but I was walking alone/with friends to my school and back and didn't need to ask permission to go outside play with others. And mind you, that was a time when kid kidnapping was stil a thing. Imo what changed is abundance of cars- look how many ppl a killed by them, how big the cars got, how many spacy these take, look how far away is everything in suburbs- you basically need a car to meet with someone, it's even worse than a village due to the lack of a grid design. Also, because of spreading many third places became unprofitable, others were buldozed to create parkings esp in us with parking requirements. The zoning played a big role too- a lot of businesses that attract ppl, make the environment safer with social regulation and creating social bounds- can no longer be created bc of zoning. When tech did appear - it's natural ppl switched, bc these did offer more options to socialize safely compared to real world

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#177

Post by Moldoteck »

thepasswordis wrote: post #107

[flagged]

It may be one of the reasons, but maybe you should compare deaths caused by dangerous drug addicts vs cars in the us? To get a perspective P.s. - Netherlands does have a drug addicts problem too and still, kids there somehow do have much more freedom compared to us

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#178

Post by pezezin »

bedobi wrote: post #29

The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…

> Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan

Depends where in Japan; I live in a small city, and it is the worst urban sprawl that you could ever imagine. You absolutely need a car for everything, but at the same time the streets are really narrow and dark, and without sidewalks. It is not fun, to put it mildly.

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#179

Post by Dylan16807 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #139
Dylan16807 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm... Going by this chart (the first thing in google), the percent of immigrants between 1850 and 1930 was about the same as 2000-on, with a dip in the middle.

That period led to increasing ethnic tensions and a demand to restrict immigration to protect cultural continuity, as well. Eg, this. [0] Why are people surprised by a similar outcome this time? [0] - https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-a...

Were tensions rising for 80 years straight? Or more, since the chart doesn't go before 1850?

If not, what was different between 1850 and 1900?

Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood

#180

Post by vundercind »

lmm wrote: post #35
analog31 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids faced the same situation, though at least the neighbors also had kids. I think that parents have to revolt en masse against saturating their kids with extracurriculars. One family going it alone is going to have lonesome kids. The competitiveness has to go away -- the feeling that your kids have to be 100% occupied in order to give them a fighting chance in the future. Schools need to back off on homework.

The problem there is college. You'd have to either make college admissions much less "holistic", or make sure there are non-college paths to success (something people have been trying hard for many years with little success), or both.

This has to be some segment of the middle-class and especially newly-upper-middle-by-income-but-not-socialization running into this trouble. Parents “under” that set just send their kids to [name of state] State where OK test scores and grades do the job. That’s a large majority of parents of college-bound kids, right there.

Parents “above” that set let the legacy admissions advantage and golfs-with-Ivy-admissions-officers prep school counselor sort it out.

Kids seriously looking to get into highly-selective schools are a minority.

This does mean you’re opting your kids out of elite schools by not playing that game from an early age, but hey, you and everybody (the colloquial “everybody”—most folks) else.

Post reply on HN